Portable radio communication devices are designed to be intentionally put into a transmit mode, and are otherwise in a receive mode. This reduces power consumption since the transmit operation usually consumes a significant amount of power. In time division multiple access (TDMA) based systems, each device is assigned a time slot for either transmitting to another device or receiving a signal from another device. Depending on traffic congestion in the network, not every assigned slot for which a device is in receive mode will have an active transmission from another device. Thus, the device will keep its receiver on for the entire assigned time slot even when there is no transmission to receive.
Receiver power consumption is still significant, and can reduce battery life of a portable communication device, necessitating more frequent battery changes or charges. Receiver usage also contributes to average power consumption, which is related to system temperature and other more complex thermal management techniques. With the ever increasing demand for smaller portable radio transceiver devices, reducing power consumption even of a receiver can have a significant impact in future radio communication devices and applications.
A technique is needed to reduce power consumption associated with a radio receiver in a radio communication device by minimizing the amount of time that the radio receiver is enabled.